But that's exactly what most "let's build an AI solution for this" looks like. Unnecessary at best, hindering at worst.
Iโm having these conversations SO often they're showing up in my dreams. Last night's: a man wanted an AI agent to remind his aging grandmother to take her medication at the same time every day.
Thoughtful idea. Terrible use of AI.
Could you go to Claude Cowork & have it connect to a few things that either email or notify via phone to remind your grandmother to take her meds? Sure.
But, you're also signing up for:
๐ธ Abstraction issues. Agents abstract (hide) the steps necessary to make this work. So when grandma stops getting reminders, you won't know which step broke.
๐ธ Costs. Daily LLM runs across multiple connected tools add up fast.
๐ธ Fragility. The whole thing fails if the model provider goes down, your computer sleeps, a model update (or removal) breaks the workflow, tool connection loses access, etc.
Meanwhile, a simple phone alarm labeled "Take X medication" costs nothing and works every day.
So how do you know when a problem actually needs AI? Ask one question:
โ ๐๐ผ๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ธ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐พ๐๐ถ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป, ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ท๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป?
Same input, same output, every time? That's repetition. You don't need AI.
You need the simplest rung on this ladder:
1๏ธโฃ ๐ฃ๐ต๐๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐น + ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฎ๐น๐ผ๐ด: sticky note, pill organizer, a card your Mom can flip on the wall that says where she is (for your Dad with dementia). Zero failure modes.
2๏ธโฃ ๐ง๐ผ๐ผ๐น๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐น๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ ๐ผ๐๐ป: phone alarms, recurring calendar events, iPhone/Android reminders. Free, reliable, already in your pocket.
3๏ธโฃ ๐ฆ๐ถ๐บ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป: NFC tags, Apple Shortcuts, IFTTT, Zapier.
4๏ธโฃ ๐ ๐๐บ๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฝ๐: a cron job (a scheduler built into every computer that runs code on repeat) + a few lines of Python. Sounds intimidating. It's not: AI can write the script for you in 30 seconds, then it runs deterministically forever. ๐ก Use AI to BUILD the tool, not to BE the tool!
5๏ธโฃ ๐๐ for tasks that need interpretation. Messy language, unstructured input, 40 customer calls to summarize. AI does the heavy lifting. You keep the judgment calls: what matters, what's good, what ships.
Most people jump from rung 1 straight to rung 5 because rungs 2 through 4 are invisible to them.
Start at the bottom. Climb up only when a rung fails you.
Sometimes the answer is AI. Sometimes it isn't because there are simpler, better solutions.